


Borderlands

by peoriapeoria



Category: Slings & Arrows, due South
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-29
Updated: 2011-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:03:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is all the afterworld a stage? Exeunt is not the same as gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borderlands

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to petra for betaing this.

Oliver Welles' first thought was that hell had frozen over. It was so _cold_. He had been insensible since he'd died. The unrelenting white was so boring, and disorienting. He wasn't dressed for this, black, perhaps fuchsia, a strong contrast was needed. An anorak.

Shouldn't cremation prevent you from being cold in the afterlife? He started walking, paying little heed to his legs sinking into the snow. No trees, no rocks, no signs of any sort, it was some horrible inversion of a black box theater. Even the light seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere. He looked behind himself, his tracks filled in behind.

Everybody was a critic.

  
Bob Fraser, RCMP, deceased, squinted as he looked forward from the runners of his dogsled. He changed his course to investigate the lump more closely. He slowed the dogs at some distance, stopped and finally stepped off. Some city fellow. At least he wasn't a wannabe hunter, not without a rifle or any provisions.

  
"What?" Oliver stilled the enameled mug with both hands, then looked at them encased in fur. "Mittens?"

"Slippers. Don't spill, they're a present for my wife."

Oliver looked over at the other man. "Where is this?" He wondered where the coat had come from.

Bob lowered the mug. "This is the Borderlands. The Undiscovered Country. You don't look like you belong here."

"I'm dead. I don't belong anywhere."

Bob chuckled. "We're all dead here. Barring the occasional incident with toads or whatnot."

Oliver snorted at that then looked longingly at the mug.

Bob lifted the tea again until it was drained. "Come on, best be off."

  
Oliver shook his head. As soon as they were inside an impossibly small cabin his-- He was standing in a cabin with a Mountie in parade red and ridiculous hat. Sadly, the Mountie's appearance otherwise hadn't changed--still craggy. His host stepped over to an ancient stove and started feeding wood through the door. Oliver pulled off the slippers from his hands and stuffed them into one deep pocket before untoggling his coat. Bored, he looked around, realizing he was surrounded by still lifes and landscapes. Some of them were pretty good.

"Don't go messing with those. Not all of them are dry."

Oliver lifted his hands wide then turned. "Is it all like this?"

"Hard to say, don't get many strangers. You'd count."

"How long have you been dead?" For all he knew this Mountie might not know electricity.

"I was killed in 1995."

And he after-lived like this? Oliver looked at the amenities-free interior. No plumbing, no radio, no light bulbs. This was 1895. Oliver expected Frankenstein's monster to drop in at any moment. "Why am I here?"

"No idea. The Borderlands are different for everyone. Haunt anyone?"

Oliver looked up. He missed Geoffrey. The silence stretched. He couldn't frame his life or afterlife in terms a Mountie would understand. "Shouldn't you be taking the slippers to your wife?"

"I'm on patrol. And I haven't figured out what to do with you. Paint?"

Oliver looked at him blankly then shook his head. "No more plays to direct."

"That explains the clothes."

Oliver looked down. Okay, if he'd known he'd spend eternity in his 'final' suit he might have specified differently. "How'd you change?"

"Practice."

"Do you haunt someone? Somewhere?" He tried to read the Mountie's expression.

"Don't let the fire go out." Bob stepped outside, again in his winter gear.

Bob looked around, wondering at the ropes and sandbags at one end of a church. Former church he supposed. Either east or south, one couldn't be this fickle in the North.

  
"Ellen!" Geoffrey turned and walked around the wreckage of their renovations. The company was living in close quarters, and Ellen didn't take to it. He remembered painting her house in New Burbage. Not the colors it was now. Had been; he didn't know the terms of the renter's lease. They were okay, Ellen just needed to make her exits and entrances. It was hard with them all wedged into a few rooms, someone was always in the way to her mark.

Bob peered at the-- he'd thought Benton's Yank, the second one, was scruffy, but this, this man was preposterous. He'd have submitted to one of Buck's haircuts well before this stage, and there was no reason for that much beard except pursuit or loss of razor. It was worse since he looked like a funhouse reflection of Benton. Might explain the director, maybe.  
He waved his hands in front of the man's eyes. "Boo." No reaction. He left the man to his own devices and wandered about. He turned back. He'd always seen a fair amount of Caroline in their son. Personality? Tiberius might have a hand, or rather another body part, in this actor's appearance. He faded out.

Geoffrey exhaled in relief. He was done with seeing ghosts.


End file.
